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MotoGP
72 hours with Jorge Martín: every MotoGP™ rider’s dream weekend
We tagged along with burgeoning MotoGP™ talent Jorge Martín as he dominated Grand Prix Deutschland. Discover more about the Spanish sensation right here.
Eye of the Tiger blares out on repeat, prosecco is flying everywhere to a chorus of laughter as Jorge Martín sprays anyone in his general vicinity with his bottle from the podium, his crew lining up for a swig and that taste of victory.
The Spaniard took not just the Liqui Moly Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland victory, but the Sprint win as well, and we were there following him every step of what turned out to be a weekend most riders in MotoGP™ could only dream of.
I went to meet Jorge on Thursday at his team’s truck in the Sachsenring. He’s late, because of course he is. But arrives with a smile, a friendly hello and asks me how I am. The same way, in fact, as he did when he was one of the first riders I ever carried out an on-camera interview with back in 2018.
I was a first-year commentator and reporter, he was at the start of what was to be his World Championship-winning season in Moto3™. A few more tattoos these days, some more scars, a large and expensive-looking chain around his neck, the flashy shoes to boot. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that underneath all that, he’s the same as he was before any of his world-level successes in the sport – a driven and relentless athlete, with the perspective to enjoy the sort of riches this kind of life can bring.
Jorge Martín at the Motul TT Assen 2023
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
His is a career that may not ever have got off the ground in the first place, however:
Everything was going well until 2008 when everything collapsed
“Everything was going well until 2008 when everything collapsed. It was really tough, my father worked in the financial industry and my mother worked selling kitchens. They both lost their jobs.”
Jorge was 10 years old when the global economic crisis struck, that crucial age when families need to decide whether they’re committing to the goal of professional racing or not. Come 2011, they'd run out of options, but were thrown a potential lifeline through being invited to the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup selection event.
A young Jorge back in 2012 at the Red Bull Rookies Cup in Portugal
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
The Cup sits just below the Moto3™ World Championship and is a form of racing that keeps costs to families at a minimum. If you perform well in Rookies Cup, your chances of being picked up by a World Championship team are near guaranteed.
“At that point, I didn’t know [that was his only chance], as I was 13 years old, just a kid, I was having fun… but I knew I didn’t have many opportunities and I had to take advantage of that particular day.”
There’s no more pressure than that, it’s impossible… it was all or nothing
He was chosen and spent three years in the Cup, winning the title in 2014: “That was the year my mentality changed a lot. There wasn’t just the pressure that you’re the favorite and you have to win, but the pressure of it being the only option – win or go home. There’s no more pressure than that, it’s impossible… it was all or nothing. And in the end, it was all."
But not everyone in this situation makes it. Jorge reckons that 95 percent of riders with a background like his own fail to turn professional. I asked why he was one of the fortunate ones, and he told me how “difficult moments make stronger people,” and that growing up racing 70cc minimotos, he never had the best bike on the grid, which forced him to use riding ability to go faster and win races. The family never went abroad for holidays either, while school classmates would take trips to New York and the Caribbean. Perhaps another chip on the shoulder that contributed to on-track success.
Jorge en-route to the Red Bull Rookies Cup title in Aragón, Spain, 2014
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Martín is described by many in MotoGP™ as one of the most talented riders in the sport. He’s pure blockbuster to watch on the track, whether it’s racing or lapping on his own. Even his crew, in their third year of working with him, were blown away by watching him braking on one wheel into Sachsenring’s tricky downhill turn one, every lap looking like he was way too deep and going wide, or worse. No one was doing it the way he did.
But there’s a catch to this spectacular all-or-nothing, or as he’s put it previously, “living corner-to-corner” approach. It’s brought more than a fair share of injuries to the #89.
Martín joined Ducati and the Pramac Racing Team in 2021 and in only his second MotoGP™ weekend, secured pole position on the starting grid and bagged a podium in the race in Doha. An astonishing achievement. But his bump back down to earth at the next race in Portugal couldn’t have been more brutal.
All smiles in Doha in 2021
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
A crash in practice sent him cartwheeling through the gravel and left him with heavy fractures to his thumb, knee and ankle. He was out of action for four races and even considered quitting the sport altogether after such a fright.
It took four races after his return for him to stand on the podium again – a total of six race starts into his MotoGP™ career to become a race winner. Ambitions of multiple victories and a potential title challenge came in his sophomore year. But Martín struggled with the new engine characteristics of his particular 2022 Ducati, finishing a winless season with a bitter taste in his mouth after being snubbed for the second factory Ducati seat for 2023 as fellow Independent Team rider, Enea Bastianini, racked up four wins, finishing third in the title race to Jorge’s ninth.
But be careful what you wish for. Racing is a fickle game. Enter 2023, a new bike with an engine more to Jorge’s liking, as well as the addition of the ‘MotoGP™ Sprint,’ an extra half-distance race with half the usual championship points up for grabs that takes place on the Saturday of every Grand Prix weekend. This is exactly the kind of tyre-torturing, full-throttle, all-or-nothing kind of racing that you’d think would suit the Spaniard down to every molecule of his DNA.
Two Sprint podiums in the first three races, a Sprint victory in France with two trips to the Grand Prix rostrum had set Jorge up nicely for this fateful weekend in Germany. Meanwhile, poor Bastianini copped racing’s darker side a mere five corners into the season, a broken shoulder leaving him out of action for the first five weekends.
Joy for the team after winning at the Sachsenring in 2023
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
I stood in the designated ‘guest area’ of the Prima Pramac Racing garage, watching Jorge’s father, Angel – now his personal assistant – make sure all his gear is ready for the session, exactly where Jorge should find it. Helmet, gloves, ear protection, nose tape, the lot.
“I’m so happy to have him here,” says Jorge. “Maybe a friend or a mate won’t always tell you what you don’t want to hear, whereas my Dad is always going to tell me that. It keeps my feet on the ground so at the end of the day, it’s all positive.”
For those that caught our piece on Moto2™ rider, Pedro Acosta, in Jerez, the pit box of a MotoGP™ team is vastly different. Bigger - a given, but the personnel, job roles, the guests, the layout, no photos or videos when the bikes don’t have their covers on… this is another world.
After each session, a MotoGP™ rider can expect to debrief with around seven or eight engineers hanging off their every word to help make them as fast as possible on the track. What’s clear is the strength of the relationships Jorge and his team have built together. A lot of teams will call themselves ‘a family,’ but I’ve personally always felt skeptical about the extent to which that is true… sport is business after all. But this team feels different. Similar to the bonds we saw a glimpse of between Acosta and his crew.
Jorge closing in on the win at the Sachsenring
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
Martín took both the Sprint victory and won a nail-biting finish to the Grand Prix in Germany – easily the best of the season so far. He beat the reigning champion, Pecco Bagnaia, to the line by 0.064s. Barely a bike length.
He sits second in the championship heading into the summer break, 24 checkered flags to go in the 2023 season, but when questioned about the title in the post-race press conference, he insists: “[the championship] is not something I’m thinking about right now. I want to battle for wins because I feel I need those for that kind of confidence. I got the podium confidence before, now I have the winning confidence.”
I got the podium confidence before, now I have the winning confidence
Sounds like the kind of chat from a real MotoGP™ championship contender to me.
Don’t let the chains, tattoos, sneakers, house on the Pyrenean mountainside or anything else fool you, whatever the outcome of this year or the next, behind any new trophies will be the same humble and determined attitude that got him there in the first place:
“One month ago I bought my first ‘big car,’ a Porsche Turbo S and I struggled to go on the streets with it because I felt a bit of… shame… because people were looking at me in it. I don’t feel comfortable with that.
"But, you know, we play with our lives every time we go on the track. We train every day for four to five hours a day. So I do always feel that whatever I get, I deserve. For me, it’s family first, but while being intelligent about it, you need to enjoy things as well.”
